CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - Two veteran NASA spaceflyers and a European astronaut are
ready to do their part to prime the International Space Station (ISS) for
expansion once their shuttle Discovery launches into orbit this week.
NASA
astronauts Stephanie Wilson, Daniel Tani and Italian spaceflyer Paolo Nespoli
are set to launch toward the space station with three crewmates Tuesday to kick
off a challenging
14-day construction flight. The astronaut trio has a mixed bag of duties,
ranging from robotic arm work to spacewalk choreography, to help move an old U.S. solar power tower and install the new Harmony connecting node.
"The space
station was meant international," Wilson said in a NASA interview, adding that
the Harmony module will anchor new laboratories from NASA's ISS partners. "So
it's wonderful to be expanding the science opportunity by adding, in future
flights, the Japanese and the European laboratory modules."
Commanded
by veteran
spaceflyer Pamela Melroy, Discovery's STS-120 crew is slated to launch at
11:38 a.m. EDT (1538 GMT) tomorrow from Pad 39A here at the Kennedy Space Center.
Robotics
chief
Hailing
from Pittsfield, Mass., Wilson is making her second shuttle flight in two years
with Discovery's upcoming liftoff and will oversee the tricky robotics work to
inspect the shuttle's heat shield for damage, install the Harmony node and
relocate the station's older Port 6 solar array segment to its permanent
position on the outpost's port side.
She first
flew as a robotic arm operator during the NASA's
STS-121 mission in July 2006, and hopes to use that experience to aid her
fellow crewmates who will control the shuttle and ISS robotic arms for the
first time.
"So I
actually feel that my biggest role is to help assist them become experienced
robotic arm operators, and to help make sure that they get the training that
they need," Wilson, 41, said in a preflight interview.
Wilson joined NASA long before she began
training as an astronaut in 1996. An aerospace engineer, she joined NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in 1992 and supported the Galileo mission to explore
Jupiter before applying twice to the agency's spaceflying ranks.
During
STS-120, Wilson will also serve as flight engineer to assist Melroy and shuttle
pilot George Zamka during launch and landing. But it is the relocation of the
17.5-ton Port 6 truss, which has sat in its mast-like perch above the station's
Unity module for almost seven years, which she finds most challenging.
Moving the
hefty solar power tower requires coordination between the station and shuttle robotic
arms to pluck the segment free, install it at the leftmost edge of the outpost's
backbone-like main truss and then finally unfurl its wing-like arrays.
"That is a
very complex activity," Wilson said. "We hope it will go smoothly, but perhaps it
will go differently."
From Italy, with pride
For
Nespoli, Tuesday's planned launch aboard Discovery will bring a lifelong dream
of spaceflight to fruition.
"It was a
seed that, I would say, started when I was a little kid and I was seeing these
images coming from the moon, with the astronaut bouncing around," said Nespoli,
50, who represents both the Italian and European Space Agencies (ESA). "I
thought, 'Wow, that's what I'd really like to do when I grow up.'"
A former
Special Forces operator in the Italian Army, Nespoli is a native of Verano
Brianza, Milan and served as an astronaut training engineer for the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany, before joining the spaceflying ranks of Italy and the ESA in 1998.
During
STS-120, he will serve as a
spacewalking quarterback of sorts to help choreograph his crewmates working
outside the ISS during four of the mission's five planned excursions dedicated
to space station construction. The mission holds a special place in his heart
because the Harmony module was built in Italy, and he has his own Esperia
science mission to perform for ESA researchers.
"It's a big
deal [in Italy] because it's not everyday that you get to design, build and
carry in space a major piece of the space station," Nespoli said of the Harmony
node.
Discovery's
commander, Pamela Melroy, has dubbed Nespoli the astronaut version of the
resourceful U.S. television character "MacGyver."
"Paulo is
one of the most creative engineers I've ever seen," said Melroy, adding that
she once watched as he carefully chose which tools to bring in space aboard Discovery.
"I encouraged him to take one of everything because I am sure he's going to
build something in space with it."
Space
station-bound
With one shuttle
flight under his belt, Tani is the only member of Discovery's crew who doesn't
plan to return home right away from the ISS. Instead, he expects to replace
NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson as part of the station's Expedition 16 crew and
spend several months living aboard the orbital laboratory.
But the
46-year-old native of Lombard, Illinois did not initially believe life as
an astronaut was a possibility during his youth.
"It's a
dream job; it's like we're playing in the World Series or being a movie star," Tani
said in a NASA interview.
But after
obtaining bachelor's and masters degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and working alongside NASA astronauts in aerospace industry,
the job seemed more attainable and he joined the agency's spaceflying corps in
1996.
He first flew
to the space station in 2001 during NASA's 12-day STS-108 mission and will
perform one spacewalk and some robotics operations while Discovery is docked at
the orbital laboratory. But unlike his last flight, Tani has the extra
challenging of preparing to leave his wife Jane and two young daughters, ages 3
years and about 17 months, respectively, for a lengthy spaceflight.
"I consider
the training the hard part," Tani told reporters, adding that it entailed years
packed with long-distance travel between Russian and the U.S. "I feel like I'm
past the hump of the sacrifice, of the difficulty, and I think my family feels
the same way now that we've made it through training."
Tani is
slated to return to Earth in December during NASA's STS-122 mission aboard
Atlantis, which will ferry his replacement - ESA astronaut Leopold Eyharts - to
the ISS.
"It's the
coolest thing to do in the world, in my mind," he said of his upcoming
spaceflight. "So I'm pleased to be able to do it."
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